Cycle Solutions Inc. takes pride in providing customers with performance upgrades that really make their motorcycles rock. There is a recipe to performance and we have done our homework over the years on quality products and the proper combination. Recently someone visited our shop in Fort Myers, FL because he was disappointed in his motorcycles performance after taking his 2006 Street Glide to another local shop. We had spoken to this potential customer about our services and products and quoted a price to get the job done. Unfortunately, he had decided to take his motorcycle to another local shop to have the upgrades done for reasons that we do not know and the results were terrible. We put his motorcycle on our dyno and all we could say was “Wow”. It was one of the worst running motorcycles we have seen across our dyno in a while.

First, lets take a look at his bill below (shop information has been removed). As you can see he paid a very large amount of money for engine upgrades. This is a nice list of parts and should for the most part increase the performance on the motorcycle. Instead of receiving a rocking machine, he got a motorcycle that performed less than stock and ran absolutely terribly.

Unfortunately, this customer ended up with a very sad running machine. He spent roughly $8400.00 for a motorcycle that performs worse than a stock one. His dyno graph below tells all. His motorcycle barely made 60 horsepower and with the big bore upgrades he paid for he should at least be over the 100 mark. His air/fuel ratio is not even close. The dotted red line represents a perfect air/fuel ration at the bottom of the graph and his curve is so far off that we can not decide if the Power Vision tuner he had was just for looks because it was clearly not setup to do any proper tuning to his motorcycle. His bill does clearly state that his bike was tuned and taken for a test ride. One ride on our dyno and we knew this motorcycle needed surgery and asap!

First thing that needed done was to replace the exhaust that his motorcycle had that was robbing his motorcycle of performance. A quality exhaust is the key and this customer had SE mufflers that had the baffles removed along with a true dual header that appeared to be home made. The shop that did the work to his motorcycle installed torque cones into his exhaust. Torque cones are a thing of the past, We have never been a fan of torque cones anyway and with today’s top performing exhaust systems there is no reason for them, if there even was a reason, and no reason to take the baffles out of your exhaust. We can not talk enough about investing in a great exhaust system. We installed a D&D Fat Cat 2 into 1 exhaust because top performance needs proper supporting products!

Secondly, the power vision needed to be replaced with a Thundermax Auto Tune with a professional tune for the engine build. Power Visions when set up properly might be OK for a stage one but if other upgrades are in your future or you are all about top notch performance then invest in a Thundermax and have it professionally installed and tuned by Cycle Solutions Inc.

We cracked open the camchest and tore down the big bore upgrades to inspect what he had. The local shop had used stock heads with a set of poorly bored out cylinders. This motorcycle had no compression. No wonder it was struggling. We replaced the cylinders, heads and pistons with a 98″ big bore kit from Zippers and upgraded the throttle body to a 55mm because this should be done when you are doing engine upgrades. Larger lift cams and bored cylinders and heads allow your motorcycle to take in more air for better combustion. Leaving a restricted stock throttle body on your engine will restrict the amount of air flow that your engine can breathe in, potentially robbing the engine of power. A quality air intake is also required so the engine can breathe so we also replaced the modified stock intake that he had on his motor with one of our CSR Air Intakes. Luckily we were able to re-use the S&S camchest that was previously installed.

Lastly we installed a Rekluse Torqdrive clutch that is designed to handle high horsepower builds. This is not an absolute necessity, however, the stock clutch is not designed for large amounts of horsepower and will begin slipping eventually and need replaced. The Torqdrive clutch is a well built system and puts the power to the ground complimenting the build.

Another trip to the dyno for precision tuning of the Thundermax and this bike has new life. The graph below shows the finished result. This motorcycle went from 60 HP to 115 HP which is where it should be for this type of build. Again, it is all because of the proper parts, professional installation and professional tuning.

Unfortunately, we see this often. Customers bring us motorcycles with performance upgrades that don’t perform as well as they should. Please reach out to us for your next upgrade. This customer paid twice for upgrades that should have performed the first time around. We have skilled mechanics on staff and the best dyno tuner in the country that will make your motorcycle top-notch no matter what level of performance you are looking for.

We are taking appointments now at our Fort Myers, Florida location now through April 24th. Call Chris at 765-730-1646 for your spot in our schedule.

Jim has been a long time customer of Cycle Solutions Inc. and over the years has become a great friend. Cycle Solutions Inc. did the 124″ motor build on Jim’s bike at our Hartford City, IN location. At Daytona Bike Week 2015, Jim did a testimonial about the Rekluse EXP Automatic Clutch. Hear what Jim has to say about the Rekluse EXP Automatic Clutch!

Rekluse is teaming up with Cycle Solutions Inc. at the 75th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. We will have a Rekluse representative in our booth to answer questions about this incredible product. Both the TorqDrive and the EXP Automatic Clutch are available on our website plus sales and installation offered from our show truck.

I have a customer with a 2011 Screamin Eagle 110 Ultra Classic. He has complained that the bike’s top end is noisy after he takes it back to Harley Davidson for service. (We service it each spring in Daytona Beach). He states that after it’s spring service with Cycle Solutions, it is very noticable quiter. Why? Cycle Solutions Inc uses the Lucas Oil 50 weight full synthetic in the 110″ engine and 4 oz of Lucas Oil Stabilizer. The 20w50 syn 3 Harley oil is just too thin and gets thinner with the increased operating temperature of the 110″ engine. Today we drained the syn 3 again from his bike and replaced the oil with the 50 weight synthetic Lucas and stabilizer. I also replace the cheap Harley throw away oil filter with a chrome K&P billet oil cooler/filter. This filter flows about five times more freely, makes more horsepower and torque than a paper filter, and never has to be replaced (just cleaned)!!! It took at most one second on startup for the oil light to go out and the top end to quiet down! Customer present, pleased, and promised never to go back to syn 3 Harley oil!

Hello Chris, Mike Ballard here with the 2006 Road King, like to say thanks for all your help this weekend, the bike runs much better the increase power is very noticeable, most of thanks for helping me understand the process and helping understand the strain my motor was under not being able to breathe and exhaust.

Thanks again for your service; it was great meeting you and your staff. Most of all I’d like to say that you’re set up is fantastic, as you know there are many traveling dyno on the circuit, but you’re the first I’ve seen that was a full service center, that can identify a problem and offer a solution and correct the concern/problem, while you wait, very convenient.

I own a 2011 Harley davidson road glide custom with 103 power pack. I brought the bike to a shop for some custom work including, black powder coat everything that was chrome, hhi 7 degree rakes triple trees, painted inner fairing, grips, 23″ Russ wernimont front fender, 23″ renegade Racine wheel and matching floating rotors, shifter linkage, Arlen ness mini oval mirrors, etc… I also purchase rinehart xtreme dual exhaust black, Roland sands turbine intake, and thundermax with auto tune setup with NGK iridium spark plugs from chris at cycle solutions. The bike ran great when I initially installed the exhaust, intake, plugs, and tmax. After the bike was ready to be picked up from the shop it started to have a slight hesitation at constant throttle. The bike actually started to get worse and drove like a motorcycle with a carburetor at a cold start in the middle of winter. The bike had about 100 miles on it. I then plugged the tmax in to my computer to check for new maps or any updates there may have been. I set a new map and ran the bike. No change what so ever. I contacted chris at this point and he asked me to call him in the am and he would go through the entire process with me of resetting the program and installing the proper map. We did that the next day. Chris had me first remove the ECM fuse for 1 minute, then installing it for 1 minute and then repeating the process a second time. Then we did the ignition process on and off 3 times for 10 seconds each cycle. Re-installed the map we found appropriate and called it a day. I then went for a ride with the bike and noticed there was no change. It was still hesitating. Chugging. I once again called Chris seeking his help to fix this bike. He asked me if I shut the bike down using the ignition or the kill switch on the right hand control. I told him I always use the kill switch. Just a habit of mine. Chris said that’s not a good idea because the tmax is a windows based program so shutting the bike down using the kill switch would be like having a bunch of programs up on your pc and just pulling the cord right out of the wall socket. So shutting the bike down using the kill switch will destroy all learned maps on the tmax. Not good. So chris had me pull the ECM fuse again. Out 1 min in 1 min twice. Then regulating the ignition on 10 seconds off 10 seconds 3 times and go for a ride. Yet again there was no improvement. So I plugged the bike back in to the computer and ran the diagnostic codes. It had a code. It was tgs1 lo. This meant I had a faulty twist grip sensor which also set an other code p2122 which was like a limp mode so nothing gets damaged. No problem. Went to Harley for them to run the code but couldn’t on their system because the thundermax wouldn’t let them. We looked the codes up in the speedo and came to the conclusion it was in fact the throttle by wire. I just bought the new part and installed it my self. The codes automatically cleared them selves. I took the bike for a ride and just like that it was running like a champ again. About 150 miles later I’m riding the bike and it starts hesitating again! I plug the tmax in again to my pc and run diagnostic codes. I find nothing there. There were also no codes in the speedo at this point. Now I’m really lost. I call Chris once again. I’m thinking it’s something wrong with the thundermax. Chris tells me he highly doubts it. But who knows at this point. So chris suggests putting the stock o2 sensors back in the pipes and removing the thundermax ECM and placing harley’s stock ECM back in the bike and running it for a while to rule out the ECM being the issue. I took it for a ride with the stock ECM and what do you know. Chris was right. It rode even worse. The bike couldn’t get out of it’s own way at this point. Now with the stock ECM I just put the bike in my trailer and dropped it off at the dealer for them to figure out what the issue was. Come to find out the issue was actually the jumper harness that plugs into the end of the twist grip sensor then to the main harness. The issue was I was initially going to have ape hangers installed so when the tech took the bike apart he snipped the green plug from the end of the jumper harness. When I decided not to do bars he just simply soldered the wires together to maintain the factory plug. Problem was he soldered it poorly and also didn’t use any shrink wrap. He used some electrical tape and of course the solder failed and one of the wires came apart. Problem solved. It was the jumper all along. The TGS was never a problem. The tmax was installed once again with the proper map and it now runs mint. The power difference from the stock ECM and the tmax is seriously night and day. No comparison. Hopefully this will help someone out in the future If you are ever to experience this type of issue.